This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

Synopsis

The ability to read and write texts is a core skill we need to live in the modern world. In this unit we look critically at what it means to be literate and the processes by which we develop literacy skills in our first and second languages. A key focus of the unit is exploring how technological changes, such as the advent of twitter and the use of imbedded links on websites might affect the ways in which we process and design texts. We also consider different approaches to teaching literacy skills in schools and universities and the issues of access, power and participation embedded within them.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

Deconstruct the skills involved in being literate

Describe different approaches to teaching literacy to young children and advantages and disadvantages of each approach

Outline the demands of academic literacy and how the development of literacy skills varies in first and second languages.

Contrast language features commonly found in at least two different types of texts

Use ethnographic methods to study literacy events.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.